Originally, I ended the story with the murder. My friends asked, “What happened to Marjorie?” This is the aftermath.
The murder trial was over and Roger Caldwell, Marjorie’s second husband, was in prison. Marjorie was lonely. There was a man she was interested in marrying, Wally Hagen, but he had a wife. Fortunately, his wife was in the hospital so Marjorie paid her a visit one night and fed her banana pudding. The woman died. What a surprise! Marjorie married the deceased woman’s husband, Walter Hagen, in August of 1981. She was still married to Roger but details, details.
Marjorie and her new husband purchased a home outside of Minneapolis and just as soon as it was insured, the house burned down. But there were witnesses. Marjorie was arrested and sentenced to two and a half years in prison. She did her time and was released in October of 1986. The lawsuit between Marjorie and her children had been settled and Marjorie was getting some money from the trust, enough to set up housekeeping. She moved with hubby number three to a tiny town in Arizona called Ajo.
And now, Marjorie comes full circle. Ajo, Arizona was one of the mining towns that had been built by the mining company owned by Chester Congdon and my great-grandfather. It was a town of 3,500 people next to a giant open pit copper mine that had been mined out. Ajo was now a retirement community. Its homes were tiny four-room bungalows that were cheaper than trailers. Marjorie and Wally moved in.
About a year after the couple arrived, the fires started. One of the fires burned a warehouse in which Marjorie’s Airstream trailer was stored. The insurance claim was filed, as usual. Then, the town was hit with a plague of fires, forty three or so in the summer of 1990. Everyone knew it was Marjorie. Her last name was Hagen and the people of Ajo began to call the fire department “Hagen’s Heroes.”
But one night, Marjorie went too far. A border patrol officer lived in a bungalow about three or four houses down from Marge and Wally’s place. He was falling asleep when he heard someone at his window. He got up in time to see Marjorie and her dog walk swiftly away. He went back to bed. He heard the noise again, got up and saw Marjorie making a fast exit once more. Now, he went outside to check it out. Between the window and screen, he found a large rag soaked in kerosene. He called the police. They brought out the night vision goggles, the cameras and the guns and waited. Sure enough, about 2:00 AM, the men inside the house heard a match being struck and then saw the blaze. They snapped pictures. Marjorie saw the flash from the camera and ran like the wind down the alley. She was caught, handcuffed and arrested. The officers found the matchbook with a single match missing. Marjorie went to jail.
She was put on trial. She had done time in Minnesota for arson and the Arizona judge was not sympathetic. She was sentenced to fifteen years. Before she got sent up, she asked the judge, could she have a little time at home to make arrangements for her husband Wally? He was eighty-four and in poor health. The judge gave Marjorie a twenty-four hour reprieve. He sent police along to watch the house in case she decided to make a break for the border. But as she walked up the front path to the small home, her husband greeted her with open arms. Only twenty-four hours. It wasn’t much time. And when the police picked her up the next afternoon, Wally was dead. Marjorie was arrested for murder.
But the police couldn’t prove a thing. Oh, they knew how she did it. First, she (allegedly) wrote a double suicide note which Wally signed. It was probably something to the effect that they couldn’t live without each other so they were going to go out together. Then, Marjorie fed her husband a major dose of Xanax. The prescription was in his name. But Wally apparently didn’t die so easily. He had developed a tolerance for the drug.
Marjorie couldn’t afford to have him revived the way her mother had been, so she took more drastic measures. She went outside, unscrewed the garden hose, brought it in, attached one end to the gas jet on her stove and taped the other end to Wally’s nose. The gas was what, allegedly, did him in. She timed it perfectly. Evidence of gas poisoning leaves the body after several hours. She had several hours left. The police knocked on her door about 1:00 that afternoon. One of them smelled gas. Was everything alright? Yes, she told them, everything’s fine, I’ll see you at 5:00. And at 5:00 they discovered the body and arrested Marjorie for murder. But they had to drop the charges. She had the suicide note Wally had signed and the drugs he had used to end his life were his own prescription. The police figured out the garden hose and the gas. But they couldn’t prove a thing.
Marjorie served her time for the arson and got out after eleven years. Now it was 2004. Marjorie was 72 years old. Surely, everyone thought, she was too old for crime. Surely she would slow down now, go somewhere and hide away. But not our Marjorie. In 2007 she was arrested again. She had discovered senior assisted living facilities. It was too much to resist.
She befriended a man in an assisted living facility and gained power of attorney. He was expecting a check for $10,000. He died. No one knows how. The check arrived. Marjorie forged his signature and deposited it in her account. The check was dated the day after his death. Marjorie got probation. You just can’t keep a good woman down.
Strychnine in the Marmalade 